Middle East - Anthony Ham [425]
Microbuses covering local routes around Aleppo leave from the sprawling City Bus Station outside Bab Antakya.
Train
The train station ( 221 3900) is housed in an attractive old building located about a 25-minute walk from the central hotel area, north of the big public park. Please note that all departure times listed below are subject to change, so check at the station for the latest departure times.
At the time of writing, there were four daily express services to Damascus at 4am, 5.40am, 10.05am and 3.30pm (1st/2nd class S£240/200, 4½ hours) and one slow service at midnight (1st/2nd class S£110/75, six hours). The services go via Homs (1st/2nd class S£130/110). The middle-of-the-night express services are considerably cheaper on the Damascus line.
To Lattakia, there are two daily express trains (1st/2nd class S£160/135, 2½ hours) at 6am and 5.45pm, and two slow trains (1st/2nd class S£70/50, 3½ hours) at 6.45am and 3.45pm. Two daily trains travel to Deir ez-Zur (4½ hours) at 11.15pm (1st/2nd class S£115/75) and 4.10pm (1st/2nd class S£175/145).
For long-haul travellers, there are services to Tehran (S£4050 in sleeper class) on Mondays at 1.30pm, and to İstanbul (S£3570 in sleeper class) on Tuesdays at 11.00am.
A taxi from the station to the Al-Jdeida, Bab Antakya or Bab al-Faraj areas should cost between S£35 and S£50.
Return to beginning of chapter
QALA’AT SAMAAN
Also known as the Basilica of St Simeon, the ruins of Qala’at Samaan (adult/student S£150/10; 9am-6pm Apr-Sep, to 4pm Oct-Mar) are among the most atmospheric of Syria’s archaeological sites. The basilica commemorates St Simeon Stylites, one of Syria’s most eccentric early Christians.
Simeon was the son of a shepherd who opted at a young age for life in a monastery. Finding monastic life insufficiently ascetic, he retreated to a cave in the barren hills, where he lived under a regimen of self-imposed severity. Word spread and people began to visit to seek his blessing. Simeon apparently resented this invasion of his solitude so intensely that he was driven, in AD 423, to erect a 3m-high pillar upon which he took up residence so that people couldn’t touch him. Legend goes that as his tolerance of people decreased he erected ever higher pillars. In all he’s said to have spent close to 40 years on top of his pillars, the last of which was 18m in height. There was a railing around the top, and an iron chain attached to the stone to stop him toppling off in the middle of the night. Simeon would preach daily from his perch and shout answers to his audiences’ questions; however, he refused to talk to women and even his mother was not allowed near the column. After his death in 459, an enormous church was built around the most famous pillar, and pilgrims from all parts of Christendom came to pay their respects.
The site today is remarkably well preserved, with the quite lovely Romanesque facade still standing and the arches of the octagonal yard still reasonably complete. There’s plenty of ornamental carved stonework to admire, although Simeon’s pillar is in a sad state and is nothing more than a boulder, reduced centuries ago by pilgrims chipping away at it for holy souvenirs.
The church had a unique design with four basilicas arranged in the shape of a cross, each opening onto a central octagonal yard covered by a dome. Beneath the dome stood the pillar. Completed in around 491 after about 14 years of building, it was the largest church in the world at the time. With the arrival of Islam in Syria, the Byzantine Christians were put on the defensive and the church complex was fortified, hence the name Qala’at (fortress). It eventually fell to the Islamic Fatimid dynasty in 1017.
Views of the surrounding countryside are simply stunning, especially towards the west and to Turkey in the north.
Qala’at Samaan is a 40-minute drive from Aleppo.